screams of helpless men and
women. Of some 400 aboard,
only a few dozen survived.
legend and history.
Already we had uncov
ered Spanish gold side
by side with Budweiser beer cans
and ancient Chamorro sling
stones, as well as World War II
shrapnel and unexploded ammu
nition. Only three miles away lies
the island of Tinian, renowned
as the World War II airfield that
launched the B-29 Enola Gay
toward Hiroshima. Ironically, a
world-class golf course catering
to Japanese tourists recently
opened along the shore overlook
ing the Concepcion site.
Our survey and recovery ves
sel arrived in Saipan on March
14, 1987, and anchored a hun
dred yards off a narrow strip of
coral sand called Agingan Beach
on Saipan's southwest coast.
The first three weeks of diving
yielded ceramic sherds and scat
tered concentrations of ballast
stones, but little else. Nearly 350
years of typhoons have played
havoc with the wreck remains,
but with patience we developed
almost a sixth sense of where the
artifacts lay. Threat of typhoons
prevented fieldwork between
July and December, but during
the first six months of both 1987
and 1988 we recovered nearly all
that remained of the Concepcidn.
Our handpicked crew of 30
men and women included seven
nationalities-Thai, Malaysian,
Singaporean, Filipino, Austra
lian, English, and American. It
was as varied as the crew that
had manned the Concepcion her
self, which shipped out with a
colorful passenger list and sailors
from the polyglot labor pools
of Manila and Mexico. We had
archaeologists, conservators,
computer programmers, artifact
illustrators, photographers, writ
ers, engineers, cooks, riggers,
welders, marine biologists, and a
secretary. Virtually everyone
was a qualified diver as well.
One of the seasoned veterans
was the expedition's assistant
director, Hank Parker, a profes
sor of marine biology on a two
year leave of absence from
Southeastern Massachusetts Uni
versity. Hank was a fellow U. S.
Navy salvage officer in the
1960s. During ten months' work
on the Concepcidn site the crew
conducted more than 10,000
individual dives without a single
serious mishap.
UR DISCOVERY of the
golden lady occurred
on March 10, 1988,
during the third and
final dive of a day early in our
second season. At that time
Vichai and I were moving from
seaward toward shore, clearing
successive swaths across the
channel with a water eductor, a
steel nozzle eight inches in diam
eter that draws sediments up
from the seabed, exposing arti
facts for recovery, then deposit
ing the sediments at the end of a
40-foot flexible plastic pipe.
Moments after the discovery
Vichai saw a stonefish, warned
me, and chased it away. Its ven
omous spines can cause excruci
ating pain-even death. We had
been lucky so far. Reef sharks
hadn't been a problem, since
we didn't spearfish or discard
garbage. But moray eels, which
have sharp, inward-curving
teeth, had bitten several divers.
However, we discovered that in
our mutual fright, the eels were
quick to let go. Fire-coral burns
were also common and painful,
and nearly every diver had had
at least one sharp encounter with
a sea urchin.
But most of the marine life
around Saipan is benign and
beautiful. With visibility at times
greater than 200 feet we were
often distracted by rainbow pal
ettes of reef fish, by the bright
red-and-yellow feathery fronds
Nuestra Senora de la Concepcidn